Strange Fragments

I discovered these lines, tucked between my copy of CS Lewis' "Letters to an American Lady." They were written, I think, a little before this time last year. From memory I'd just come out of the final CU Planning Days Meeting for the year. The late afternoon sun shone as bright as midday, and I was walking briskly to a dinner appointment with a friend.

Sylvia Plath says that "everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise" - I do believe I need some improvisation to make this work ... Perhaps some guts too!

So here's the bald unvarnished scribblings. They're a bit weird. A strange disembodiment, popping up a year later: out of context, and late in time.

What do you think?

*********

Here you sit
An elbow's distance away
I can touch your starched cotton wrists
Should I wish to reach

The sun warm our faces -
A near-perfect, halcyon day
The traffic dulls our senses
And your eyes dart
from face to face

(But never rest upon my face)

Question after question
You ask after my heart
My tongue seems to have struck rock
wedged between teeth and fear

You call me amazingly reserved
Yet I cannot fathom your face
No trace of blood nor flesh
Only chiseled holes
Where eyes, nose, mouth
And expression should be

So we have but words

Words choked by heads too hard
Words rooted in barren ground
Words that breathe dust
And endure still